


Contortions

by nerdyydragon



Series: Kingsman Tumblr Ficlets [82]
Category: Kingsman (2014), Kingsman (2015), Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, POV Multiple, eggsy literally cannot stop being bendy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9596825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdyydragon/pseuds/nerdyydragon
Summary: What was left of Eggsy's gymnastics training had made him aware of his body and how it moved, to the extent of knowing what it needed. The other knights didn't quite understand how he could bend into those positions, but more often than not nobody really paid any attention (except for those times when they did).





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am, back with another short fic (okay, so it was actually the product of a couple of days, but I don't see any of you complaining)!

Eggsy and the Misadventures in Household Chores

Why did everything in Harry’s house have to be so damn high?

It hadn’t been long since Kingsman’s very own Jesus had been cleared to go home from medical after spending months of gruelling physical therapy at the manor, and the moment he was cleared Eggsy had offered to help in any way he could. It was only fair, considering everything the man had done for him (there was also the teeny, positively almost nonexistent, really, little fact that Eggsy was in love with him, but that was neither here nor there).

While Harry puttered around the house trying to do as much as he could - and sometimes more than he could handle - Eggsy had taken to doing chores around the house; cleaning things like the floor where the repetitive movements were still hard on Harry’s muscles, making sure said man took the medication for said muscles as well as for his migraines (there was a whole rainbow of medications, and Eggsy had made a list to keep track of them all and pinned it to the fridge. And the bathroom mirror. There may also have been one on Harry’s nightstand. He just wanted him to get better, was that a crime?), and laundry.

Oh, laundry.

Eggsy could feel the strain in the backs of his calves as he balanced precariously on a stool, one leg jutting out behind him for balance, while he tried to reach for the socks that had made a home at the bottom of the dryer. It wouldn’t have been a hard task, normally, had Harry not gone for a stack set in the hall closet so that there could be a neat little folding table. But the fact of the matter remained that it was up high enough that Eggsy had somehow managed to get himself inside the machine. Almost. He was certain that with a little bit of wiggling he could unstick his shoulder.

Probably.

Eggsy let out a high keen at the back of his throat at the unfortunate nature of his circumstances, and right on cue there was a polite cough from the doorway. He felt himself sag.

“Need help?” There was laughter in Harry’s voice as he no doubt watched the process with interest, but Eggsy managed to turn just enough inside the dryer to be able to look at him.

“I’ve got it, Harry. Thank you.” Harry chuckled and closed the distance between them, one arm skimming up his back before wrapping around his waist firmly, and then the man appeared at his side, still holding him, to reach past him inside the dryer. Without looking at what he was doing, Harry plucked out all three socks Eggsy had been trying to reach.

“You could have just asked, you know.” The arm around his waist tightened as Harry helped guide him out of the machine without hurting himself or trying to dislocate any joints. Eggsy tried valiantly not to think about Harry’s hands on him, but with him so close it was a rather difficult task. Eventually - by the loosest sense of the term - he gave up and focused on trying not to make a noise that had the very real possibility of making Harry uncomfortable. When Harry managed to get him free he toppled backwards, feet hitting the floor about the same time as his back wound up against Harry’s chest, the man’s arm still locked around his waist.

“Didn’t want to trouble you.” Harry’s laugh was a rumble against his back, deep and rich, and Eggsy was glad Harry couldn’t see his face.

“You didn’t want to trouble me? Darling.” Eggsy slipped a little further into Harry’s hold at the endearment, and he considered it a rather embarrassing reflex. Harry’s fingers splayed over his side, and there was still laughter in Harry’s voice as he rested his chin on Eggsy’s head. “Nothing you could do will ever cause me trouble.”

* * *

 

Listen, Harry, you literally brought this on yourself

This was getting out of hand. Harry was finding, and increasingly so, that he could not go anywhere - in his house or otherwise - without at some point being confronted with Eggsy’s flexibility. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it, per se. Quite the opposite.

But it seemed that that was, indeed, the issue.

Eggsy had been called up by Merlin to help train the recruits for the obstacle course, something in which required several degrees of prowess in areas the recruits simply didn’t have. Ergo, Eggsy. As Arthur, Harry had felt it his duty to supervise this bout of training (no, Merlin, it was not simply because Eggsy was there, thank you very much) as he had yet to make any sort of formal appearance.

The man in question was in the middle of a demonstration when Harry arrived at the training facility, the newest batch of recruits lined up against the side of the course, watching intently. Harry tried not to focus on the way Eggsy moved, attempting to give the recruits his attention instead. If Merlin’s suffering sigh next to him was any indication, he was probably failing spectacularly.

Eggsy dismounted the final obstacle, sticking the landing with ease, before sending the recruits off to try it on their own and making his way up to the viewing platform. As he got closer, Harry could see a fine sheen of sweat glossing his skin. Harry swallowed, and Merlin elbowed him swiftly in the ribs. Eggsy had taken his place on the railing, one ankle slung up over the top, so that he could stretch out his legs at the same time as watching the proceedings.

“The training seems to be progressing well,” Harry said, joining him against the railing. Glancing down, he could see Eggsy rubbing out the muscles in his leg. Harry tried not to focus on it, but he found that looking at the man’s face was almost worse.

“Oh yeah, real well.” Eggsy said, then doing a double take when he realized that it was Harry and not Merlin standing in his immediate space. “Sir.” Harry huffed.

“You don’t have to call me sir, Eggsy. Not unless we’re at the Round Table. How many times must I tell you this?” Eggsy gawked at him, though that may well have been because Harry had absentmindedly removed the man’s hands from his own leg and was now steadily working on a knot just behind his knee.

“Harry?”

“Yes Eggsy?” Harry didn’t look up from where he was focused on Eggsy’s thigh.

“What are you doing?” Harry paused and glanced up to look at him.

“Helping? If it makes you uncomfortable I can stop.” The look in Eggsy’s eyes told him that it was, but there was also a warning that told him that he should by no means take his own advice. Eggsy leaned forward, almost bending himself in half, and wrapped his fingers around his foot. Harry blinked, suddenly confronted with an unexpected expanse of muscle.

“God, no, don’t stop Harry.” Eggsy let out a huff of air that sounded suspiciously like a moan. Looking up at Merlin over the Eggsy’s back, Merlin merely raised an eyebrow at him. “Your fingers are fucking magic.” Harry swallowed thickly but continued to work at the knot he had found earlier.

Across from him, Merlin brought his clipboard up and hit himself in the face.

* * *

 

Merlin just  _really_ wants things to run on time - is once too much to ask?

They were going to have to have a little chat about proper use of workplace environments, Eggsy and Merlin.

Whether it was remnants of his recruit training or left over from the marines, Eggsy always showed up to Round Table meetings almost excessively early. There were even times when he arrived before Merlin, and that in and of itself was a feat.

No, Eggsy’s showing up early to this particular meeting was not unusual.

It was the stretching.

Merlin had, by some miracle, managed to get Harry together so that Arthur would be present when the rest of the agents began to trickle in, as opposed to showing up late like the man normally did. The two of them had been making idle small talk, ironic insofar as they both hated it with a passion, on their way to the meeting. Merlin had opened the door for his friend who, in what he would later discover was a side effect of momentary loss of coherence, cut himself off in the middle of a sentence and stalled in the middle of said doorway.

Elbowing past Harry to see what had rendered him so speechless, Merlin was confronted with one Eggsy Unwin, down to his shirtsleeves and suspenders - jacket discarded on the chair next to him - bent forward at a painful looking angle, hands planted on the seat of a chair while trying to stretch out his back.

Eggsy managed to rock back on his heels, keeping his hands where they were, and even across the room Merlin could hear the pleased sigh ghost past his lips. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Harry’s head follow the motion, tilting sideways slightly. Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“This is like that laundry incident you were telling me about,” he muttered. Oh yes, he had heard all about that. At length. Several times. Harry coloured slightly at the second groan that Eggsy made, clearly not aware that he had an audience.

Merlin pushed his friend forward with one hand in the middle of his back, and after staggering forward several steps Harry turned back to glare at him. He made a shooing motion with his hand but Harry took another step all the same, and Merlin turned and backed out of the door. Just as it was closing, he could hear Harry clear his threat pointedly. A muffled “oh, hello Harry,” was the last thing he heard before the large door whispered shut.

Shaking his head, Merlin rescheduled the meeting for later that afternoon.

* * *

 

Same, Tristan, same.

All Tristan wanted to do was have a relaxing, mind-numbing workout, shower, and then go home and pass out for a few hours. Was that too much to ask?

Considering he was asking Arthur and Excalibur, the answer was, apparently, yes.

He had been running on the treadmill when Excalibur had arrived, and with a polite nod to the other man heading over to the gymnastics equipment, continued on with his workout. Tristan didn’t say a word to him, and aside from the running of the machine and the joint sounds of their laboured breathing, the gym was quiet.

And then, of course, Arthur arrived. Tristan wouldn’t begrudge him the opportunity to get back into the swing of things, considering the man still wasn’t cleared for active field duty and the team of doctors in medical were watching him intently to make sure everything was running smoothly. Nodding politely at Arthur as he passed, Tristan tried - and failed - to regain his focus.

It was rather difficult when the two of them had gravitated to the sparring mat, directly in his line of sight. Both men stretched separately, though neither seemed to really be hiding how much they wanted to touch - there had been rumours flying around that Excalibur had been helping with Arthur’s recuperation; nearly as many as there were about Arthur giving rather excellent massages, though Tristan put stock in neither of them until he saw it with his own eyes. And possibly even then.

There was one particular rumour with a grain of truth in it, however, and that was Excalibur’s almost painful flexibility. Tristan could feel his feet nearly slip out from under him when the man in question dropped into a full split and leaned over his front leg, neatly folding himself in half.

To avoid braining himself on the front mount, Tristan grabbed the sides with both hands, and caught himself just in time to see Arthur nearly choke on his own tongue.

It was an entirely fair reaction; not many people could bend that way so easily. Catching his feet, Tristan picked up his speed, pushing towards the end of his run. If he could finish it before the two of them became a risk of death by secondhand embarrassment, then so be it.

His goal lasted all of three more minutes, when in their sparring match Excalibur took the upper hand and dropped Arthur to the mat, pinning him down with his knees straddling the other man’s hips.

In the hour and a half Tristan had been running, he didn’t think he had gone as fast as his trip to the door.

* * *

Further Misadventures in Household Chores

Eggsy had decided that he had had just about enough.

This whole mess had begun rather simply - if one could call ‘ _ accidentally falling flat-brim over winged trainers for your mentor’ _ simple. But that was what his life had become, and he was more than willing to live with that. What he  _ wasn’t  _ willing to live with was the mixed signals he had been getting from said mentor. He had noticed them more and more while he had taken up temporary residence at Harry’s flat to help with the man’s recovery after being  _ shot in the head _ , and ever since Eggsy could never quite tell if he was reading Harry’s soft glances and gentle terms of endearment correctly.

So he had resolved to do something about it.

Harry wasn’t due home from the shop until the evening - confined to desk wok as he was, he was still required to make an appearance - and Eggsy had taken his day off as an opportunity to make sure the entire flat from top to bottom was as clean as it could be - less because it really needed to be cleaned and more because he was nervous. He had taken the liberty of digging through Harry’s (albeit pitiful) cupboard of cookbooks and had settled on a roast because at least the slow-cooker could do most of the work, and had even gone to the little shop up the street for vegetables he knew would be fresh. By the time Harry was home, dinner would be on the table, and provided everything went as well as he had hoped, there would finally a good time to broach the subject of the other man’s strange behavior.

—–

When did  _ anything _ in Eggsy’s life ever go his way? He had resorted to asking himself rhetorical questions, because there had certainly been things that  _ did _ , but nearly setting the kitchen on fire trying to bake a cake was definitely not one of those times. It had taken him three tries to actually get the batter ratios correct, the first two so far out of balance that he doubted even Jamie Oliver (or perhaps even  _ his own mother,  _ whom he had called nearly in tears the second time the mixer jammed and the batter was still too sweet) could possible fix it.

It was at this moment, of course, with dinner in the warmer and his third attempt at a chocolate cake in the oven, with icing waiting in a covered bowl off to the side because  _ of course that was the only thing that had worked _ , that Harry arrived from the shop, looking tired but still sparing enough energy for a look of bewilderment to see Eggsy in an apron, flour in his hair and resolutely trying not to look like he had been crying, just putting the last of the table settings out.  Harry cleared his throat politely, and Eggsy, for all his spy training, let out a yelp.

“Is this all for me?” Eggsy looked down at his feat and brushed a bit of flour off of his apron -  _ Harry’s _ apron - before looking back up. He nodded slowly. “Why?”

“Wanted to do something nice for you.” Harry chuckled and padded across the kitchen, taking a deep breath through his nose and smiling at the mix of smells.

“Well, thank you, darling,” Eggsy could feel himself blush. “But why all this? And the flat is cleaner than I think it may have ever been. This can’t all be because you wanted to  _ do something nice _ .”

The words came pouring out, after that, and Eggsy hoped that he wasn’t destroying his friendship with Harry because he had so horrendously misread the situation.

“Well, I mean, you’re always doing nice things for me, and my mum, and even Daisy, and sometimes I don’t even think you  _ know _ that you’re doing it, and you’re such a good person even if you think you’re really not.” Eggsy scrubbed at the back of his neck, looking down again. “And I didn’t think anyone could be as nice as you are because my life’s a little bit shot to hell so maybe my perception’s a bit skewed but you’re just  _ too good _ , Harry, and I don’t deserve any of this even though you keep telling me I do, and I know you’re going to tell me that I deserve the world on a plate and you’re going to use  _ that _ tone, so  _ don’t you dare try, Harry _ .” When Eggsy had managed to drag his eyes up from the tile, Harry had been looking at him with one of those soft smiles, the ones that only he gets to see, and he had to head him off because if Harry opened his mouth he would lose his nerve, and once he had started he couldn’t stop. “But lately you’ve been so confusing that I wanted to do something so we could talk, because I need to figure out what’s going on, with me, with you, with  _ us _ , because I just don’t understand and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t want to eat, it’s l-  _ holy shit it’s nearly nine _ \- it’s very late and if you’d just rather go to bed then that’s fine. But that was kind of my reasoning. Sort of. We do nice things for the people we love and I wanted to do something nice for you.” Eggsy exhaled heavily and waited, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation of Harry’s reaction. The man blinked once, then twice, and the smile that had been tugging at the corner of his mouth pulled a little bit higher.

“You wanted to do something nice for me,” Harry said, and Eggsy nodded. “Because you do nice things for the people you love.”  _ Shit, _ Eggsy thought, as the reality of what he had just word-vomited began to sink in. “Tell me, Eggsy, is this particular  _ nice thing _ related in any way to what - and believe me when I tell you that I’ve considered this at length - seems to be rather deliberate instances of displays of physical prowess?” Harry arched an eyebrow, and Eggsy swallowed.

“Maybe.” Harry’s smile widened. Eggsy watched as Harry stepped into his space, slowly trailing one hand up his arm before cupping Eggsy’s jaw.

“Well it seem you’ve beaten me to the punch, then, and also lost me a bet.” Eggsy frowned. “I bet Merlin that I would be able to ask you out to dinner before you made a move. I’m now down a bottle of good scotch.” Eggsy laughed, a sound that died in his mouth as Harry kissed him.

 

 


End file.
